Heartbeat, breath of life, light of his eyes
by GraceEliz
Summary: He grins at the water crashing against his makeshift dam. It worked, against every odd. It worked! All the people in the village below are safe from drowning, not that this is a safe area to live in. Still, he has work to do. There's Luthor to catch, and Jimmy could do with a pickup. (End of first Christopher Reeve Superman movie, Clark's reaction)


This was, originally, only going to be around 700 words long. Haha. Blame my discord for the angstiness. Leave a comment, please, and no there will NOT be any more of this story. It's a oneshot. Sorry folks.

Content warnings: Angst, Major character death, crying, so on and so forth.

Positive content: Clark & Lois, Clark & Jimmy, background Clark & Bruce.

Also contains references to Christian and Biblical beliefs, dealing with choices, etc etc. Enjoy.

hr

Sweet young Jimmy Olsen has a nasty habit of taking risks to get his photographs. He climbs trees and cars and pylons and roofs in his efforts to get a good view, and more than once Clark – Kansas raised farm boy Clark who is the strongest man in the office and unofficial security for all the young new ones – has had to climb up or down after him and pull him out of too many scrummages. It was too easy, before he flew out the first time in the cape and tights, to get attached to the scrawny kid who lived life by reels of film and had even less self-preservation than Lois when he got something he wanted to shoot. It was too easy to take him under his wing and teach him the rough parts of town, the alleys to avoid, what to say to get out of being sent to Gotham, and more importantly to call for Clark when he was on trouble.

It was too easy to take him to meet Bruce at one of the charity galas Lois can't stand covering and let him run loose around the grounds for a few hours. And it was too easy, far too easy, to take the boy into his heart and call him "son" or "young man" or "kiddo" with too much affection. He let himself get too deep. Now he fears, day in day out, that it'll be Jimmy who works it out and turns away in anger – or, God forbid (does Clark even still have a God? He'll have to think about that), fear. Clark Kent is the gentlest of giants, but Superman is a foreign entity, a literal alien force, who is mostly indestructible but his family, those he values, they're so breakable. Even Bruce. Especially Jimmy.

Sometimes he forgets how young Jimmy is, but now, seeing him struggle to hold on to the ledge he'd perched on as the land bucks and kicks Clark almost buckles under the fear of him being hurt by Luthor's scheming. Seeing Jimmy in pain would hurt more than any wound to himself ever could even with Kryptonite infections and what Bruce affectionately labelled 'man flu'.

Jimmy falls, yelping for his camera, falls towards the drop -

"Superman!"

"it's alright, son," he assures with the hard confidence Superman always has, "You're safe now," I hope, safe until I get you in danger again, until Perry decides you don't need me to watch you like it seems he has. Jimmy grins bright as the sun even as Clark sets him oh-so-softly on the road, keeps smiling when he raises his camera to try catch him leaving – and call him soft, Clark would stop and let him get a decent picture if he had the time to spare but there's too much to do.

He grins at the water crashing against his makeshift dam. It worked, against every odd. It worked! All the people in the village below are safe from drowning, not that this is a safe area to live in. Still, he has work to do. There's Luthor to catch, and Jimmy could do with a pickup, and he really should get onto Bruce so that relief can be organised, and check that his identity isn't under threat. The list aligns in his head to the steady beat of twin heartbeats and the soft rasp of lungs, the rasp wheeze of Lois his angel and world.

What's happening now? Something in his perception of the world is wrong. It feels like the engines shutting off in an aeroplane or ferry, some background noise of your reality is missing of a sudden but he just can't tell what it is. It isn't Bruce his heartbeat, thank god, or Jimmy, and it's unthinkable for it to be Lois. Unthinkable. Isn't it? Isn't it…

He stands on the brim of the hill and focuses on her, her heartbeat and breath and her pulse, blood running under her lovely skin but something about the rush of her pulse and the rasping wheeze of her lungs screams of desperation and she feels all wrong in his ears and oh god, god no no no

Her heart beats panic-fast even as her breath chokes up and he can hear dirt and rocks and the car crushing under the impact, so he does what he has to and follows his ears as fast as he dares to her. The miles fall away behind him as he flees back to her, near where he left Jimmy, empty desert stretching out as far as his tear-blurred eyes can see. Cracked by the earthquakes, the road twists like a new scar over the skin of the land. That must be the gas station, that black oil-cloud, and the telephone lines are down and there she is, his ears draw him down to a boulder-filled crack of the earth with a glint of red under the dust.

He can see her under there, not breathing, bones bent and muscles crushed under the dirt which suffocated her. She's soft grit under his uncalloused alien hands, clammy, no rasp or thrum of breath or blood.

If his heart beats for Bruce and Jimmy is the light of his eyes then Lois is the blood in his veins and the breath in his chest and she's gone, stopped, bruised and broken because he was too late for her, too late, what's the use of all this power if he's always going to be too late and it doesn't bring him any relief that Bruce is fine and happy because Lois is gone from him. The truth is, that if Bruce is something like the world, then Lois is the world itself and he himself no more than a satellite. Not even a moon. A satellite drifting and crashing now without an orbit.

Clark hates this, hates himself for the wish that he hadn't known Jimmy needed him, hates the world and hates Lex Luthor.

His chest is loss loss grief and his stomach is empty and if he had anything in him he'd retch it all up at the side of this little dirt road

There's dust in her smile lines.

Grit in her teeth on her lipstick.

A glancing blow from something has left an ugly scar.

Clark screams it out, roars his pain, trying to force it out out out of him out of his self but it won't go, he's hurt in all the wrong places worse than ever and it should have been Jimmy it should never be this, never Lois. Not his life.

He doesn't know what to do.

'You can't turn back time.'

But.

What if.

Nobody else flies so fast, the Earth spins one way only.

It has to be worth a try.

The stars blur with speed and tears and he's pushing harder for the last ounce of speed in him, every cell on double-time to push push through the barrier holding time in place so he can just go back even ten minutes –

Clark thinks he might throw up. This is worse than any concussion, Kryptonite or Diana inflicted. If the world would hold still for one minute he'd really appreciate the help, thanks. Bruce's heart pulses with his, alarmed, but that makes sense, what with the-

Missile.

Lois!

He jerks up, listens, strains to tune in, like listening for a voice in a full room through a wall, listening for that particular hum of blood. Hold, hold, she should be….

Yes! There, near an explosion (the gas station, whispers his conscience desperately), so he throws himself at the sky and hurtles in her direction and plucks her car up like grabbing a baby just as the road cracks like a hatching egg. Clark sets his world down gently on the verge well away from the danger, whirls up into the blue again to catch the last missile (the one he missed before because of his grief) and some part of him is aware he's saved a lot of lives today, done good work like he wanted to do, proved himself strong enough.

Another part is still reeling that Lois died.

It feels wrong in his lungs.

The second missile is careered into space to explode safely into nothingness where it will cause no harm, a satisfactory flash erupting across his vision for a few seconds before fading into the blur of the Milky Way. Earth is a gem below him, coveted by many, protected by so few, and the heartbeats he loves are strong in him. Bruce, Lois, Mom, Jim-

No

"No, please," he begs the universe, himself, praying to gods he doesn't believe in and the one God he thinks he might believe in, "Please not Jimmy, not my boy, please." There's Lois, looking beautifully alive and dazed a little and confused a lot, the cloud of oil-smoke, the makeshift dam he remembered to shove into place –

The main dam, cracked.

The pylon.

Jimmy's camera swinging in the breeze, knotted around the ledge Jimmy fell off last time. The sun glints off the dusty lens, the blur of red and blue reflected in the shining leather strap he bought for Jimmy only a week ago.

He screamed for Lois in grief but he cries out in fear for Jimmy, dropping like a boulder to hover over the landslip rubble. Such a drop for a fragile mortal, too far to fall for even the Bat, the odds stacked wildly against his boy, his light. It's too cruel to make him search out his boy through the rubble, but he has to check, because if Jimmy isn't under there then Clark truly doesn't know what he will do in retaliation. Losing Lois hurt like death. Losing Jimmy is not something Clark has ever dared to even have nightmares of. How many times did he almost but not quite call him son? How many nights off were spent trailing Jimmy from a near distance? How much of Clark's love belongs to this camera boy who barely scrapes the drinking age?

How many bones broken in his son's ribcage, how many bruises on his legs. Too many, Clark knows immediately. Jimmy is hurt badly, but his chest moves and his heart beats but louder than these even if barely is his whimpering. "Clark? I'm scared, help me I'm so scared."

There's a colder fury than ever he's felt growing in his stomach at the man who dared to hurt his boy this badly. Clark has put lowlife criminals into hospital for lesser insults to his loved ones than the one paid today but revenge must wait on emergency action, must wait on the boulders above Jimmy being carefully lifted away. "Lie easy, Jimmy, I'm here, do you hear? I'm here," who cares if Clark Kent and Superman are meant to sound different, "Son, I've got you. Lie still for me, Jimmy, one minute more."

"It hurts, Clark."

I know son, he thinks desperately as he finally gathers the boy up, I know and I'm so sorry for it this is my fault my fault mine alone. Jimmy rasps in pain with each intake of air, wheezing on the exhale, head lolling weakly on the steel of Clark's suited shoulder. The tang of blood stings the air, stings Clark's eyes and stains his tongue copper. Miles fall away under them as he sweeps North back to Metropolis General Hospital, passing over cities and the smoke of Gotham and Blüdhaven on his way. True, Gotham would let him put Jimmy in their hospitals (they're equipped for it) but they need the comfort of home.

"Help him," he tells the medics in the ER unit, "Please, help him." They take Jimmy out of his arms onto a gurney, but Jimmy sobs and grabs for Clark with his broken hands. "Easy, son, it's okay. They're going to help you, but I can't stay. I'll be back soon, okay? I'll be straight back," he promises – who cares that Superman can't have attachments, that's his son over there in pain and suffering. A young medic says something about leaving a contact number; he absently pushes a Clark Kent contact card to them and flies back to Lois.

Lois is stood exactly where he left her, trying to get the car running with the recorder playing back her interviews about the man buying up the land (it's Lex Luthor honey and Clark is going to take him down) as she fiddles. He lands without making a sound on the crunchy gravel shaken up by the earthquakes. It takes a minute for him to hold himself still long enough to make a sound, his vocal cords tight in grief.

"Superman!" Lois drops her wrench, and he should pick it up, but if he moves then the words and grief will scone spilling out of him like water from the dam –

"I didn't see you there, could I have a lift? Hey, are you okay?"

He really is not. "Sure thing Lois, I'll take you home. It's been a long day." She nods in understanding as he scoops her up and occupies him with a report of an old woman's long-running fusion style café in uptown Metropolis. It's not new information, considering he was there when she did the interview, and he lets it wash over him on the journey home. She pecks his cheek when he sets her on her roof, waves as he flies up.

He pulls a quick change in the alley behind the General Hospital. The cold brick is grounding at his back. What is it Alfred said to him? "The sun rises, the sun sets, then it hurries back to the place where it rises again." It's taken from Ecclesiastes, somewhere, and it means that no matter what life keeps on going and the universe is permanent and we are not and there's nothing we can do to change that except continue, continue, keep on going as far and as alive as we can, even when others are missing from us even through the impossible, the suffering of those you love the most and would die in the place of. That's what it means to Clark; that no matter what his strength will return. It is of no help in this moment.

The lady on the ER desk is very sympathetic, says her daughter was in a Gotham hospital for weeks after an incident there, and can she take a message for anyone? He brushes her off absently, heads up the stairs to the ICU waiting area. It's empty, but for him, a few visitors sat at bedsides, a small family clustered around a young woman with purple bruises scattered on her body. Effort is required to block all the noise made by machines and blood and rasping inhalations and creaking joints, effort to channel his focus onto Jimmy – he's still in surgery, the doctors bustling.

He wants Bruce. He wants Lois. He wants, more than anything, Mom to be with him and tell him that no matter what he'll still have her. Would it be wrong to leave for the few minutes it would take to get Bruce and his mom? Just his mom? No, he wouldn't be able to explain it.

Clark lumbers to his feet and drifts down to reception again to ask for a call to be put through to Lois.

"Hello?"

"Lois, it's Clark. Jimmy is in the ICU in critical condition."

"Oh my god, Clark. I'm on my way."

It's alright for you, he thinks bitterly on his way back up, he's not your son.

The doctors can't give him any more information, nothing to soothe the emptiness growing in his stomach or the frantic of vibrating of his flight reflex. The sun rises, the sun sets, the sun rises, the sun sets. Nothing is new under the sun. No-one can know the anguish of the heart.

Hours blur under his skin.

"Mr Kent?"

He jolts upright at a barely-human speed, causing the orderly to blink under the force of his stare even through the crooked glasses and mussed hair. She manages a gentle smile. "Young James will be fine."

"Jimmy," he croaks, "He's called Jimmy."

"Of course," she makes a mark on the clipboard, "Jimmy will be in the ICU for a week at most, and then we can see about transferring wards or even hospitals." Clark has never been so thankful for Bruce's money. And his boy will stay alive, will come home to Clark (because like hell is he ever letting his son out of his sight ever again in their whole entire lives, in fact he's musing on moving to the Fortress for safety purposes) and Lois will come around for tea a few times a week and they'll go stay in Kansas with Ma so that Jimmy has time to recuperate, and maybe even Bruce will hang out with them once a month or so.

The orderly, whose name is Grace, leads him through two sets of doors complete with hand sanitizers to the end room, where he hears Jimmy wheezing. Grace waves him in. "You can only have two people in at a time. Do you need to make any calls?" He shakes his head no. "I'll leave you. Visiting ends in two hours, but you may stay in the waiting room." Clark threads his fingers into Jimmy's.

Visiting passes slowly, too slowly, the weak beat of Jimmy's heart in his ears. Grace comes to pull him away from his boy's side when the time is up, leading him out by the elbow so he doesn't have to take his eyes off Jimmy.

"Mr Bruce Wayne is paying for Jimmy's treatment, he told me to tell you, and Ms Lane is downstairs waiting to take you home."

"I'd rather stay."

Grace sighs. She pulls him to face her and says, "Mr Kent. Go home, change, eat, and come back in no less than an hour." Her grey hair shifts under Clark's heaved sigh, but she only crinkles her eyes and pushes him out of the double doors. "Follow the blue tiles, Ms Lane will meet you."

Once again passages and stairways blur before him. Jimmy, Lois, Bruce, they're all alive, beating in his chest.

He would die without Bruce, he wouldn't want to live without Lois, he can't imagine trying to live without Jimmy. He hates himself, hates that he knows he would survive, hates it all so much he cries and cries and cries all the drive back to his flat with Lois. Once home, she makes him hot chocolate before tucking him into his own bed. "I'll stay," she whispers to him, "I'll wait with you until the morning visiting."

Throughout the night Clark tosses and turns with his nightmares, waking up at least once an hour to listen and count Jimmy's heartbeats for three minutes (which is how long it takes Clark to settle himself) and check for Lois at his side. He has no need to check for Bruce; every time Bruce's heart stops the world falls out from under Clark. At dawn Lois shoves him to the door and mutters at him to go call his mother and his friends in Gotham, since he isn't sleeping anyway.

Clark leaves the apartment with greatest care via kitchen window, and five minutes later Superman settles into his Fortress of Solitude at the pole. From here, he can still hear Jimmy without any of the usual Metropolis background interference whilst he does his morning meditation. This is important: he muses his feelings, abilities, the events of the day, the scriptures his mother taught him and that despite his alien birth he finds very comforting. Count the things he is grateful for:

-Bruce (as the kids say, 'obvs')

-Ma

-Lois

-Jimmy

-his job

-flowers

-the girl in the corner shop who puts a care package out for Superman every three days like clockwork

\- sunrises, which he likes to watch from the South East of England

-the turn of the stars.

The next part of his meditation is to listen for people saying "I love you" around the world. Some days are better than others in this respect, but today is a calm day where he hears nothing more intense than people calling out over the sound of traffic or elevators – of course, it's that time when a lot of people are arriving and leaving home and work or school. It's a good time to do his meditation.

Finishing his meditation is usually cranking himself up for a day in the office, but today he takes deep breaths to slow his heart. He'll need to be at peace with himself when he visits Jimmy in a few hours, but first, as the orderly Grace told him, he needs some breakfast for both himself and Lois. Time to pay the girl in the corner shop a visit.

"Two of whatever you give a man whose only son is in the ICU."

"Jaysus," says the girl – a Scot he thinks, but he doesn't know his English accents well, "Aye lad, A'll get yuh and yuh – Missus? Missus, a takeaway box. Dae ya – A'll make ya a strang cup of tea." Clark's a little surprised he understands her offer, but he's grateful for it. A strong cup of tea made by a Brit is exactly what he needs.

"Three cups." He'll take one for the orderly.

The kettle in the kitchen boils noisily, tickling Clark's consciousness for a solid thirty seconds before he realises that it isn't the kettle he's hearing but the sea boiling under a volcanic discharge in the North somewhere. "Excuse me? I have to go but can you send it to the ICU at Met General for Kent?" He shoves twenty dollars at the till. "Thank you, I really really need to go."

It's not a large explosion, merely a burst of superheated gas on the seaward side of an unpopulated Icelandic volcano. He moves a fishing boat out of the 'splash zone', herds a few wild ponies further away. They're so beautiful, he doesn't want them hurt by the gas. Every time it catches him by surprise just how loud scalding water is in his ears, taking over his every sense and blocking out all but the barest awareness of humanity as a whole. If he tries he can just make out localised lifesigns: he has no chance of hearing Lois or Jimmy. All in all, he is gone for ten minutes, no longer than if he'd followed his plan to walk home and collect Lois. He knows where she keeps her spare clothes under his bed. She thinks she's sneaky, but Clark's best friend is a paranoia-prone billionaire with trust issues who nightlights as a vigilante, so, yeah, he knows about it. Superhuman abilities aren't needed.

When he walks in the front door he's still shaking the background static of boiling water out of his ears, and later when he can think again he'll blame that for why he didn't know but right now all he knows is that Lois is sat on the floor in tears, landline at her side.

"Lois?"

"Oh Clark," she gasps, "Oh god, I'm so sorry. He- "

No

"He's gone, Clark."

Nonono

"That was the hospital. He went, like that," snap of her fingers, "said they tried to bring him around but, he's gone."

The light goes out of the world.

Lois runs behind him (he's allowed to be fast that's his son in there who is dead whose heart is gone who isn't wheezing in the back of his mind anymore) and she chases him up the stairs, calling after him jut he can't stop to listen, he was too late again and no he can't think like that, not now. Not now. Not ever.

"Mr Kent," starts Grace.

"Where is he?" he demands.

"In the same room."

He pushes through the nurses and the Doctor sits back, Jimmy on the floor, bleeding from his nose but otherwise looking no more than deeply asleep. He was always prone to nosebleeds. Clark carries tissues, always, for that reason; he plucks one out of his jacket and wipes carefully around the edges of Jimmy's nostrils and lips. The white tissue stains.

"We're so sorry, Mr Kent. There was nothing we could do. He started seizing fifteen minutes ago. He hadn't regained consciousness during the night and he stopped breathing twelve minutes ago." Clark shakes his head. "There's nothing anyone can do for Jimmy now, Mr Kent. We'll let you talk to him," and he's alone in the room with the silent monitors and Jimmy. Jimmy.

The seas will give up their dead, death will be no more, he will call and the dead will answer. Clark clings to his beliefs even through the agony, telling himself that death is temporary and when the devil is done away with the dead will resurrect but God it isn't helping him right now, it will he hopes but it sure as all get out isn't stopping his keening and the sobbing. Clark sets Jimmy on the bed, climbs beside him, and sobs his bleeding heart into the soft hair tickling his neck. That's how Lois finds them, Clark curled around the boy who he wishes was his son.

"Oh, Clark."

"Go away," he chokes at her, then whispers, lower than she'll ever hear, "this is all your fault." He hates himself.


End file.
